Finding Shelter in God - Psalm 91

My roommate is obsessed (to put it mildly) with the television program Glee. One of our moments of stillness together comes Wednesday mornings when we watch the episode from the night before online. The basis premise of the show follows the lives of the members of the glee club as they try to out sing each other. For the most part the show is just humorous, but this past week the topic was issues of faith, as one of the character’s father has a major heart attack that leaves him unconscious for days. Different denominations, depth of beliefs, and faith traditions were presented through the lives of the other characters, and at the root of all of the questioning was “what do you cling to when times get hard?” The character focused on the most in the episode, Kurt, whose father suffered the heart attack, notably is wrestling with this question from an atheist’s stance. He still needed to find something to cling to during his time of pain and uncertainty, even if it was not God.

The Psalmist today is struggling with the same questions of God’s protection during turbulent times in life, albeit from a theocratic position. He paints this majestic picture of God as a loving caretaker who will rescue those loved by God from dangerous situations and harm wished upon them. Battles, the terror of the night, pestilence, and destruction are just a few of the things that the Psalmist claims that God saves us from.

And yet, as the Psalmist goes on to claim, “You will only look with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.” I have to disagree. Do you know what the number one group around the world who suffer the most during times of disaster? Times of war? Times of deep terror? Children. Sexual violence against girls in Haiti has risen dramatically since the 2010 earthquake. Over 246 million children around the world are sold into labor to pay off the debts their families owe. And who are manipulated in Africa’s longest running war? Children. Throughout history children have suffered disproportionately for the actions of the wicked. More often then not, the wicked themselves are not punished; it is the innocent who fall. Are they not protected by God?

And what about the people who suffer for not? One of my hardest deaths this summer involved the birth of a baby boy who only lived eight days. His mother was a victim of domestic violence, who fled in order to save the life of herself and her baby. The baby boy was born without an esophagus, spleen, small intestine, or stomach. He also suffered from jaundice and hydrocephalus. The ironic part is none of his aliments had to do with the abuse his mother received at the hands of his father or genetics; the doctors called it a freak accident. As I prayed with and for him and his mother every day, I was floored by her degree of faith and strength she gained in the Lord. And he still died. Do our eyes really only see the punishment of the wicked?

The Psalmist then announces, “Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.” It could be that the Psalmist feels like he has to make this statement, as if God would not provide protection to those who do not put their full trust in God. In other words the Psalmist is hinting at one of the core questions humans raise, “Why do bad things happen?” The Psalmist, based on this verse, could say well… bad things happen because we don’t believe enough in God. But bad things happen to both good people and bad people – destruction does not fall only on the side of those whom do not find their strength in God.

There then is a dangerous element to reading Psalms such as these. They can make us feel as if we are protected, especially in times of distress. But they can also rock our world when terrible things happen in our lives. The Psalm tells us that God protects those who run to God for strength – so was our faith just too weak? Was our dependence on God not strong enough? That God delivers those whom love Him? Did we not love enough? Did we run away from God’s protection?

And where is God those times when we call out, again and again, and we do not receive an answer from God. We’ve tried to turn faith in God into a pre-requisite for protection, when maybe protecting isn’t why we should have faith at all. The effects of sin and evil are not contained only to the wicked – those who prosper from doing wrong. They are universals. Causalities of war, those clutched in disease’s firm grasp, and victims of violence are not limited to “bad” people – and even if we deem them to be so, who are we to wish harm upon them? To say that they get what they deserve – for such judgment can only come from the Lord, who also shows mercy and grace beyond measure. We’ve projected onto God what we want from God instead of watching for who God really is.

Maybe we do not find shelter from God that grants us the ultimate protection from all harm. And maybe finding shelter in God is not a stagnant thing, where God scoops us into wings of refuge. Maybe its rather assurance that God will go with us wherever we will go, whatever the consequences.

One of my favorite hymns is Just a Closer Walk with Thee. Most people know the first verse of the song, which ends pleading with God, “as I walk, let me walk, close to Thee.” But the lesser-known second verse is the one that kept coming to my mind with this text, “Through this world of toil and snare, if I falter Lord, who cares? Who with me my burden shares? None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.”

How true and how realistic! The verse starts out by admitting that this world is full of toils and snares, what I would call dangers. They are indiscriminate. They are part of life. But who will share with us the burdens through life that we carry because of these troubles, Christ alone.

When we reduce the shelter of God to protection because of our faith, we will ultimately end up questioning our loyalty to God when we are in times of trouble. We start to see God as the Divine dueler of punishment instead of one walking with us, by our side, day in and day out. God is not a God who only gives protection to those who believe, but a God who has placed us, the church, here to love those who need protection the most – the abused, discarded, drunk, the barren, the homeless, the list goes on and on. The most beautiful moment on Glee this past week for me is when Kurt is taken to church with one of his friends. This friend stood up in front of the congregation and said, “I have a favor to ask you [church]. My friend’s dad is in the hospital and its pretty bad. I know we have all of our own burdens and troubles, but if we could just put them aside and focus all of our prayers on [this].” She goes on to look at Kurt and continues, “I know you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe in the power of prayer, and that’s okay. To each his own. But you’ve got to believe in something – something more than you can touch, taste, or see. Because life is to hard to go through alone – without something to hold on to, without something that’s sacred.” What a beautiful image of protection and strength. It’s found not in the idol of a God who we can hide within, and that will ultimately back fire on us, for bad things are going to happen, its part of life. Instead strength is found in life as we walk beside each other, advocating for each other, focusing our prayers for each other, believing in the power of God for those who cannot believe. We are not here to say that those who suffer are being punished. We are not here to be by silent bystanders as evil claims those dear to God’s heart. We are here to love. To bring shelter and hope to one another through the grace of God. To sit with those who mourn. To shelter those who are the most vulnerable to harm. To speak truth to the powers of the world the hurt so many. Life is too hard to go through it alone. Let us not turn away one of the greatest gifts God has given us, the gift of the strength we offer to each other, to this community, to this world. The strength that we can only offer because we walk each day with Jesus, our power and comfort along the rocky road of life. Life is too hard to go through alone.